


These Irretrievable

by windsorblue



Category: Gundam Wing
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2006-10-27
Updated: 2006-10-27
Packaged: 2017-10-15 06:13:48
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 633
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/157839
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/windsorblue/pseuds/windsorblue
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>prisonfic 'verse, shared with <a href="http://jennabiding.livejournal.com/profile"><img/></a><a href="http://jennabiding.livejournal.com/"><b>jennabiding</b></a>.  Vaguely concurrent with <a href="http://postwarmiracles.livejournal.com/2943.html">Dead Man's Walk</a> and <a href="http://jennabiding.livejournal.com/59364.html?view=266724#t266724">Not Enough To Stop</a>.  Entire text of the poem <i>Raging War</i> by Zuhair can be found <a href="http://www.humanistictexts.org/bedouin.htm">here.</a>  Title taken from <a href="http://www.potw.org/archive/potw376.html">Still Lies The Midnight</a> by Walt Whitman.</p>
    </blockquote>





	These Irretrievable

**Author's Note:**

> prisonfic 'verse, shared with [](http://jennabiding.livejournal.com/profile)[**jennabiding**](http://jennabiding.livejournal.com/). Vaguely concurrent with [Dead Man's Walk](http://postwarmiracles.livejournal.com/2943.html) and [Not Enough To Stop](http://jennabiding.livejournal.com/59364.html?view=266724#t266724). Entire text of the poem _Raging War_ by Zuhair can be found [here.](http://www.humanistictexts.org/bedouin.htm) Title taken from [Still Lies The Midnight](http://www.potw.org/archive/potw376.html) by Walt Whitman.

  
  
  
  
**Entry tags:**   
|   
[abdul](http://postwarmiracles.livejournal.com/tag/abdul), [angst](http://postwarmiracles.livejournal.com/tag/angst), [gw](http://postwarmiracles.livejournal.com/tag/gw), [prison-verse](http://postwarmiracles.livejournal.com/tag/prison-verse), [r](http://postwarmiracles.livejournal.com/tag/r), [rashid](http://postwarmiracles.livejournal.com/tag/rashid), [sally](http://postwarmiracles.livejournal.com/tag/sally)  
  
---|---  
  
_  
**(fic) (gw) These Irretrievable (angst, deathfic, R)**   
_   
**title:** These Irretrievable  
 **characters:** Sally, Abdul, Rashid  
 **warnings:** angst, character death, alternate timeline  
 **notes:** prisonfic 'verse, shared with [](http://jennabiding.livejournal.com/profile)[**jennabiding**](http://jennabiding.livejournal.com/). Vaguely concurrent with [Dead Man's Walk](http://postwarmiracles.livejournal.com/2943.html) and [Not Enough To Stop](http://jennabiding.livejournal.com/59364.html?view=266724#t266724). Entire text of the poem _Raging War_ by Zuhair can be found [here.](http://www.humanistictexts.org/bedouin.htm) Title taken from [Still Lies The Midnight](http://www.potw.org/archive/potw376.html) by Walt Whitman.

Reluctant, duty-bound - if the entire tribe could have clustered around the too-small screen, they would have, even though not a single member truly wanted to see. The children were gathered outside the tent with most of the women - only the eldest wives, the grandmothers, were there with the men and that too-small screen. Only the grandmothers, and her; and when Sally looked over her shoulder to find Rashid - when had he begun to look so small? - she found Abdul waiting for her eyes to meet his, his hand coming to rest at the small of her back.

"Someone should be with him," Sally began.

"Let him be," Abdul replied.

It wasn't until the grandmothers began to chant and rock that Sally finally managed to turn away from too-small Rashid to the too-small screen. In her ear, Abdul whispered English words to match the chants, the ancient Bedouin poems of war, and his whispering felt like the only thing keeping her feet on the ground.

 _And war is not but what you have learnt it to be, and  
what you have experienced, and what is said concerning it,  
is not a story based on suppositions._

The pictures on the screen didn't seem real until the grandmothers' chants shifted into wails, until the men - one by one - let themselves cry. When Abdul's tears touched wet against her hair - not until then did Sally begin to shiver. She wiped under her eyes with her thumb and turned to find Rashid again, but he wasn't there anymore. The voice that matched the pictures announced that Quatre Winner was dead, and Rashid wasn't there - like vapor, gone.

She moved, pulled away from Abdul and out of the tent - the women and children were crying, hands raised to the heavens - and she had to run to find him, walking slow but determined, away from the camp and into the desert. She called to him, shouted his name, but he didn't turn around - one foot in front of the other, resolute steps in the sand. She started to run again but strong arms grabbed her by the waist and held her fast.

"Let me go!" she shouted. Anger, sorrow - in her throat like a bile-ball, choking her words - but the grip tightened instead of lessened. "We have to stop him - why aren't you stopping him?"

"He's going to meet Master Quatre," Abdul said, his voice false-calm. "He does not want Master Quatre to meet God by himself."

Sally stilled. It was one thing to know it in her heart, but another thing altogether to hear it said. "But...the fight's not over. He can't give up now!"

"The war cost him his wife and his daughters, and now it has cost him the one he thought of as a son. For him, the fight is over. He has nothing left to fight for."

"He has us!" Sally cried. "He has you!"

"I am not enough," Abdul whispered, and his words were nearly lost on the breeze turning to wind. "We are not enough."

Sally sagged but didn't turn, didn't curl into Abdul's embrace. She was all but bent double, his arms around her waist being the only thing to keep her on her feet. One more time, she called Rashid's name, but if he heard it, he didn't turn, didn't acknowledge - one foot and then another, resolute steps in the sand.  



End file.
